“universal” - because they fit in every deck and counter almost every threat.
“staple removal” - because the other removal options available aren’t as good regardless of color (so imbalanced)
IMO a card that is universally available, like the neutral cards should have limited utility…like punishment, where it’s fine and might work in the right deck to fit in a limitation imposed by the deck’s color - or cards like yak attack that have niche uses. Each color has had staples (like Aurora/frogify in blue, seifer’s wrath in red, etc). Those are strong cards that help define each color and will most likely be in decks of those colors. That’s unavoidable…but you shouldn’t have neutral staples - because then you’re reducing deck variety by three cards in every deck. The game becomes less about which deck you picked and more about who drew their flowers first.
It won’t necessarily lead to an imbalanced meta in the end, since everyone can use crystal flower. What it will do is get rid of variety in removal since there is almost no reason to run last nightmare anymore (for example). So the end result is a much more stale meta, where three cards of every deck are crystal.
I was going to write a much longer post, but I think I want to not bother with this thread anymore and go to sleep.
Short response, Crystal Flower is not actually stronger than other removal. It costs less faeria and deals with some problems (Ruunin, mostly) better, but can be played around and teched against. If your opponent casts Last Nightmare, most creatures are just gone. If your opponent casts Crystal Flower, you can pop it with a firebomb or Emperor’s Command, or just attack it with a creature. If your opponent casts a bunch of Crystal Flowers and Azure Skywhales, you can cast Doomsday and just win when they have nothing and you have all your creatures they felt threatened enough by to remove.
The only solid response to crystal flower you listed there is doomsday in that one scenario. That’s a very specific counter to a very specific scenario, though.
The rest are actually just bad trades. For example, you can pop it with emperor’s command. Sure, so they paid 3 and a card to teleport your creature wherever they want and make it inactive one turn. You paid 2 faeria and a card to limit that inactivity to one turn only. So in the end, when you have the specific answer to flower - they pay a net of 1 faeria to teleport your creature and stun it for a turn. That is still amazing value. That’s IF you have a specific answer.
Hitting it with a creature, works if you’ve already flooded the board, so you won the game, but they stalled you a bit. So yeah, the card won’t win you a game on its own. However in this case, you are wasting damage on the flower (and possibly moving creatures out of position to do it). In closer games you might be able to hit the flower with a creature if the opponent played it stupidly, in which case they still stall your creatures and mess with position for 3 faeria (not a bad trade). Or you might be able to use a mobility trick to get to the flower, which again wastes resources and tempo, giving advantage to the flower player.
So you see your “easy counters” are just bad value trades. It’s because 3 faeria is worth a teleport and 1 turn stun, so even when your opponent is prepared for you and actively countering you, you get that, and still get great value.
Your argument doesn’t really refute anything, though. “The counters for these cards aren’t perfect” doesn’t change that those counters exist or that those counters make the card less powerful than it immediately seems. Yes, you usually gain a bit on tempo even if the card is countered. That’s what makes it a good card. It still has weaknesses in comparison to other removal that makes running that other removal worthwhile.
“Being a good card that sees play in the meta is not the same thing as being OP” - I agree with that.
Yet lets take a look at all the other Star-Legendaries:
Aurora - 6/6, there are so many ways to deal with it.
Seifer - Unless you use an Embrace on him he is pretty much useless, the 3 land requirment made it so he will come a little bit in the later game, where big creatures, even bigger then him are sure to be present, literally making his ability useless.
Khalim - Cant say about him a lot since i have never used a card, never had a problem defending aginst one though.
Ruunin - And here we are, Ruunin. There is nothing tactical about playing this card. Just make sure you have a collecter and thats all you need. Just run it again and again into enemy creatures untill its eventually to big for him to deal with it. The Ruunin feed combo is also broken, maybe you wont use it from the first time as a 4/4, but its a good target already at 6/6. When you look at Ruunin and the other Star-Legendaris, Ruunin is outvaluing every one of them - by far, literally making all the other ones look like little kids. I believe there is no point in me saying the only color wich can deal with it efficently is blue, and that if you are lucky to draw into a transformation or have it in-hand, else your pretty much fucked too. The card is so broken right now, I have seen people insta surrender in casual and even ranked when they see ruunin and they dont play blue. It’s ridiculous. I know ruunin was never played before, but with the new buff she is literally in every deck that has something to do with green, its just too much.
It’s true that Whales and Flowers aren’t totally overpowered if we had tools to efficiently deal with them. But we don’t, so it doesn’t matter which card is too OP in a vacuum.
All colors have removal - red being the god in it, followed by yellow. Blue has transformations.
Yet what does green have? A 2/4 creature wich deals 2 dmg, and in most cases will even be killed in the proccess.
There is pretty much nothing you can do with 2 dmg in most of the cases. I see people screaming Frog tosser is OP, but since when? There were ways to deal 4 dmg to a creature before, firebomb being a example, or punishment dealing 2 or 5, depending on creature and even bombslinger.
Nobody had any problem with it. Now a dude that deals 4 dmg that helps out green in a departament wich it was cleary lacking, and everybody loses they’re mind. The frog tosser will take damage too, making it pretty much killable, and since when were we ever worried about a 2/2 frog?
For your information among the guys that think Frog-Tosser needs an urgent tweak there is also Aquablad… just to make clear that it’s not a casual single player that started the argumentation, but many expert players.
Frog-Tosser is not equivalent to a bunch of spells combined at all. It’s a single card that has 5 life points more than Bomb Slinger for the same cost, also can attack everywhere, also produce a double collector, also let you develop magically a land far away from your creatures and lands. I play it against God ranked players so I know pretty well how effective it is.
Better that Frog-Tosser in middle game it’s only Azure Skywhale… try to kill it in your next turn easily when you have just lost one creature swallowed, and 1 or 2 are going to die fighting a 6/8 double collector summoned near the well you don’t control… Also when your opponent is going to summon an other whale the turn after yours…
You don’t need every color having every thing. What land creation does red have? What death synergies does blue have? IMHO it’s good that green doesn’t have much removal - I’d even go as far as saying deepwood stalker wasn’t necessary.
It might be my own bias talking, cause I like the card, but some sort of removal was needed for green, and deepwood stalker wasnt doing the job it needed.
Forcing creature trades with a x/3 or something along that line was just un-fun and could force the green player into bad trades.
Everybody is entiteld to their own opinions and I’m not here to change them, but IMHO frog tosser is a welcomed and good addition too the game and green-blue decks.
My point is they’re not really counters. They might help get a player back in the game, but they won’t make the opponent regret playing crystal (except as I said, with the well-timed doomsday). That’s why I wouldn’t call them counters. They’re counters the same way that Firebomb and 2 Seifer’s Wraths counter a Colossus. Yes, they kill the thing, but in the end it’s a bad trade and if you play the whole game that way, you’ll lose.
Basically Crystal flower is the best removal in the game UNLESS your opponent has a specific counter to it, in which case it is only a really good value.
I’ve done this. I play janky Red combat burn and if I see Ruunin any time before my first Warlord hits I just give up. All they have to do is slam into me killing everything and I cant really do anything about it. Only reason I dont complain about it much is that its one card that’s a 1 of in a deck. They just had better luck. I also only ever saw it in maybe one game a day which is fine with me.
Swallow on the other hand I am seeing in 9 out of 10 decks a day now. Its completely shut me down. My playstyle no mater what color I pick is just obliterated because making lands is not a problem. Its not hard. It LOOKS hard but its really not. I’ve literally had games where they just sat there swallowing every thing I played every turn while a whale smacked me in the face. The only time I can start hitting face soon enough is if I rush. I have to completely stop playing midrange and even then they still stop me a good number of the times at around 5 to 10 health and I feel dirty for playing rush. I’m playing a deck I hate just as an attempt to fight a deck that I hate even more.
Swallow has become Blue counter from MTG. They decide if you get to play the game.
Swallow is pretty much the new meta, untill tomorrow atleast when the new island comes out.
I got used to it, whales can be countered with punishment, wich is a card that can go in any deck. I also use crystal flower since every deck I build around whale doesen’t work and you do kinda need that style of removal to have any chance.
Overall I dont think the swallow mechanic is OP, even though whale do need some adjustments.
I also used to play red burn, then i switched to RY burn, probably my favorite deck at the moment. Really love how rakoan chieftain works in it.
Its a 4 damage fatty that can by itself deal with most threats in the game. It drops a 2/2 jumper that can serve as a collector and let you play a super aggressive land after sticking to your side the whole game. If its hurt to badly you just turn it into a defender or a collector, if not you push with it. It can theoretically deal with 3 problem creatures or 1 very big creature all by itself. You dont get that kind of utility in other removal.
Lets put it against Firebomb which you brought up. It does exactly 4 damage to one thing. If all Frog Tosser did was 4 damage then there would be no problems. Instead for just 1 more mana it does everything above. The high land cost is not a problem. As I’ve said and others have said. You can get that land up and running by the crucial turn 4 engagement with no problems at all. Its a Firebomb that 90% of the time leaves you with additionally 4/2, a 2/2, and a aggressive land. Less often depending on your and your opponents decks / luck it also leaves you with double collectors, a defender, two aggressors, and/or stalling your opponents monster conga line for a turn or two.
That’s a LOT of extra utility for just one mana. This also ignores the board state and the elemental’s and everything else you have already played to secure the board.
As I have stated before, I like the card. Plus it is the only way for green to deal some damage, outside deepwood stalker, wich IMO is a bad card.
Frog Tosser is IMO truly the only comback card green has. In all the other cases you play a big creature and hope to destroy as many opponent creatures as you can with it before it dies, or before they do too much damage to you. In order to make the aggresive land, you need to attack a defender, wich implies you are already winning or having an advantage. If you only have 1 creature on board, and the guy was nearing your orb with 3, you would use it defensevly, maybe killing something or making it low health, then have a frog and hopefully the tosser didnt die.
